Allbirds hit the ground running when it made its stock market debut yesterday, with its shares rising by as much as 95 per cent in New York.
The eco-friendly trainer company — valued at about $4 billion as its stock changed hands on the Nasdaq exchange — was founded in San Francisco five years ago by Tim Brown, 40, a former professional footballer from New Zealand, who teamed up with Joey Zwillinger, a former chemical engineer, to develop a greener alternative to trainers.
The brand’s first shoe, made from wool, eucalyptus tree fibre and sugar cane, quickly developed a cult celebrity following that included Silicon Valley’s elite and President Obama, as well as financial backing from Leonardo Di Caprio, the Hollywood star who appeared at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.
Zwillinger, 40, said he “vehemently disagreed” that wearing Allbirds shoes was a lazy way of a wearer virtue-signalling. “We are vastly superior [to] other brands and we are all in a race to get to net zero, so if you make a choice to wear our trainers, it is a fantastic micro-action to do better.”
Allbirds, which claims that its shoes have a 30 per cent lower carbon footprint than standard trainers, has found an eager market among environmentally conscious consumers. It has 27 stores worldwide, including a couple in central London, and sells in 35 countries. Zwillinger said that the brand planned to take advantage of “favourable” property conditions from struggling retailers pulling out of shopping centres and high streets to open more outlets.
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Since selling a million pairs of trainers in its first year, Allbirds now has 14 has styles of casual shoes and launched a range of sustainable clothes, including tops made from discarded crab shells that contain chitosan, which has anti-odour properties.
It sold 20.2 million shares at $15 each, raising about $303 million, but the stock quickly soared to $29.16, valuing the company at $3.9 billion. It was valued at $1.7 billion in its most recent funding round last year.
Zwillinger said the listing was “really good, it’s a big milestone for the company, we’re really happy” and dismissed concerns that advisers had undervalued the company in pricing. He said the process had been complex because Allbirds had sought to include retail investors who wanted to own part of the company and traditional institutions with “pockets” that were interested in environmental, social and governance investing.
Allbirds’ sales rose from $126 million in 2019 to $219 million in the year to 2020, although losses widened from $14.5 million to $25.9 million. Zwillinger said “there wasn’t a lot of doubt that a business like ours is poised to be quite profitable at some point in time”.
Allbirds’ share documents say that its business model is focused on “serving the needs of the next generation of consumers while delivering financial results and treading lighter on the planet”.
